thoughts about learning…and other matters

Second Life or WoW?

Would I be interested in joining a 3-D virtual world in my copious free time, which doesn’t really exist? Some of my students have been trying to persuade me to play World of Warcraft (Wow). (That was the standard acronym, not a comment.)

Then they say that it would take up all of my time, which is certainly not a selling point. They point out that a fellow senior — who shall remain anonymous to protect the guilty — skipped school on Monday so he could play World of Warcraft all day. Again, not a selling point — not for me, at least.

On the other hand, Jill Walker, associate professor and head of the department of humanistic informatics [sic] at the University of Bergen, is devoted to Wow, is editing a book on it, and has clearly thought deeply about it. That is a selling point. Walker’s remarks, and her readers comments on them, make it tempting to join this community.

On the third hand, there’s Second Life. Instead of immersing oneself in an existing world, you help to create one — at least that’s my take on one of the big differences, though I could be totally wrong. For me the initial selling point for Second Life was the presence of some serious non-techies, such as Judge Richard Posner.

A lot has been written about both of these environments. I’ve particularly been running across Second Life in my sources recently:

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About me

I have just retired after my 21st year teaching mathematics at Weston High School (the only public high school in Weston, MA, though sometimes it seems more like a private school). This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. I still teach at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer (this was the 15th!), and for 21 years I taught at the Saturday Course in Milton, MA. Until recently I served on the board of the Dorchester Historical Society.

I read, cook, and build my model railroad when I can. For some reason I’m left with less free time than would be ideal, but somehow I also manage to devote time to my wife, Barbara, and to our excessive number of cats.